Favorite

10 Favorite Podcasts for week ending 25 July 2015! Enter any of the below into your podcatcher of choice (I recommend PODKICKER) and start enjoying!

11 O’CLOCK COMICS -Mix three family men, a Broker, an Illustator, a programmer, and a knowledge of drinks, and a love of comics, and great personalities, and you get a show that is always one of the most enjoyable week in and week out

B-MOVIE CAST – Year after year, consistently one of my favorite podcasts

WTF WITH MARC MARON – Hands down the best podcast currently being made. His TV show is likewise one of ths best.

What we watch in cinema, if you ask a thousand people, you may get a thousand answers. But what we want from cinema? I think that answer is simpler.

We want cinema even at its most fantastic to tell us something true. To tell us something about ourself, and how we can aspire to be better than ourself. And that is what the best cinema does, for the fleeting time we share our attention with it, whether in a darkened theater or a light lit living room, we want to aspire to more than we are, to be better than we are.

Whether inspired to, if only in our dreams, be nicer, or more caring, or more concerned, or more heroic, or more… humane. That’s a rare gift, in a dire age, for cinema for a fleeting moment to have us believe in being better.

That is what BEYOND THE LIGHTS does. With a stellar cast of new faces and seasoned pros, Gina Prince-Bythewood of LOVE AND BASKETBALL and THE SECRET LIVES OF BEES here with her third feature film, creates inarguably her best film, and one that will become a perennial classic in households everywhere. But particularly households of color, in an America that increasingly is more ethnically diverse, our cinema and media is, doggedly and obstinately it would seem, ever more dismissive and marginalizing and denigrating, to characters of color or stories of color, that do not fit into narrow, nonthreatening, and tired stereotypes.

That’s why Gina Prince-Bythewood as writer and director is so important, and BEYOND THE LIGHTS should be so heralded. In an America where Urban Love is often defined for young people in terms of players and hos, or in terms of its absence, it is so rewarding and refreshing to see a movie with intelligent Black Characters (ie more than one or two token characters) and healthy Black relationships, between Black Men and Black women, that does not fall into tired rhetoric, or bashing, or talk show idiocy.

Korean media and cinema is filled with such loving positive interplay, as is Japanese, or Thai, or Russian, or Dutch, or Indian, or Spanish. But somehow when it comes to the broad and diverse ethnic group called Black (African-American being a marginalizing appellation, misapplied and removed from the inclusive, unifying bridge it was meant, but failed to be. Defining an ethnic group, using a nationalistic descriptor being the height of stupidity), positive loving images are in drastic shortage.

As Black Men are increasingly invisible or the sexless , funny sidekick or cross dressing Enuchs in mass media, and Black women increasingly the hor, or the pining 2nd choice for the White Knight of American mass media. Or they are self-hating thugs, raised and bedded on ignorance.

With such a table, and such rotten food to feed young and old alike on, when someone brings to the table a fine steak or beautiful trout, you realize just how empty you had been, and for how long.

BEYOND THE LIGHTS is a great film, that makes you feel better for having seen it. Makes you feel better. What a concept.

Hopefully we can look forward to more such filmmakers and more such films. Highly Recommended!

Try it for free on Netflix, but only long enough to realize you really want to own this film in Blu-Ray. Get your copy here:

A building by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) is at once unmistakably individual, and evocative of an entire era. Notable for their exceptional understanding of an organic environment, as well as for their use of steel and glass to revolutionize the interface of indoor and outdoor, Wright’s designs helped announce the age of modernity, as much as they secured his own name in the annals of architectural genius.

This meticulous compilation from TASCHEN’s previous three-volume monograph assembles the most important works from Wright’s extensive, paradigm-shifting oeuvre into one authoritative and accessibly priced overview of America’s most famous architect. Based on unlimited access to the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives in Taliesin, Arizona, the collection spans the length and breadth of Wright’s projects, both realized and unrealized, from his early Prairie Houses, through the Usonian concept home, epitomized by Fallingwater, the Tokyo years, his progressive “living architecture” buildings, right through to later schemes like the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and fantastic visions for a better tomorrow in the “living city.”

Author Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, who served as Wright’s apprentice during the 1950s, discusses recent research on Wright and gives his own insights on these game-changing buildings.

It’s about time that the 19th century’s most staggering and arguably prolific artist of the fantastic received a worthy hardcover tome, and with the almost sold out 2014 book, DORE:MASTER OF IMAGINATION edited by Phillippe Kaenel, Gustave Dore finally has that acclaim, and his fans finally have that book.

The book however, by shear breadth of Dore’s output, is in no way a comprehensive overview of his output, and is more a very cursory sampling of the different projects and mediums this renaissance man of the 19th century put his hand to.

“I am sorry to have made a mere 100,000 drawings by the age of 33″ – Gustave Dore

So it is not perfect, but it is essential and makes a great companion to those quickly going out of print, but wonderful, 1970s Dover paperback compilations of Dore’s work. Whoever the editor at Dover Publishing in the 1970s who spearheaded reprinting Dore’s acclaimed works in affordable but quality paperback volumes, they created a great boon to art lovers everywhere.

Dore was the master of the meticulous and the detailed and the imaginative, a single one of his painstaking engravings having more complexity and depth and range than most modern day artists produce in a year.

There is this school of thought, that I do not subscribe to, that detail is bad, or unnecessary, or overkill. Largely spearheaded by modern artists incapable of doing detail, so they attack the idea of detailed illustrations to justify the value of their limitations. Simplicity and minimalism have their uses, but they will never replace, or supplant, or overshadow, prodigious talent, prodigious passion, and prodigious detail, all in service to a prodigious imagination. And Gustav Dore brought all that immense talent to every drawing he did. As an artist he has my highest recommendation.

All of the Dover Dore books are collectible, but the four best are the DORE BIBLE, DORE DANTE’S DIVINE COMEDY, DORE’s ORLANDO FURIOSO, and Dore’s IDYLLS OF THE KING.

And the DORE: MASTER OF IMAGINATION book serves as a bit more upscale exploration of Gustav Dore’s life and work. Price your copy of that and the Dover Titles below!

Yes I know it is nearly the middle of 2015, but hey I’ve been busy.

And I wanted to do a comprehensive study of other peoples best and worst lists of 2014 to make sure this one wouldn’t repeat the obvious, and offer instead a unique summation.

Think you’ve seen everything of note 2014 had? Well think again. When doing research for this article I determined there was a ton of films in 2014 deserving of a watch; far more than 2015 is offering.

And thanks to streaming you can try before you buy a lot of these titles.

So without further ado:

THE MOST OVERRATED MOVIES of 2014

BABADOOK

SNOWPIERCER

GODZILLA

FORCE MAJEURE

A FIELD IN ENGLAND

THE WORST FILMS of 2014

ENEMY

NYMPHOMANIAC

THE HUNGER GAMES MOCKINGJAY PART !

ABCs OF DEATH 2 – Has a couple of good segments, but largely forgettable

VHS VIRAL

GODZILLA

A FIELD IN ENGLAND

ANNABELLE

OK TO VERY GOOD FILMS of 2014

ROVER

VENUS IN FURS

LOCKE

RAID 2

SABOTAGE

13 SINS

BORGMAN

HOUSE BOUND

I, FRANKENSTEIN

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (2014) – This one due to phenomenal direction really borders on great, it’s just a weak conclusion that bogs it down

WITCHING & BITCHING

THE BEST FILMS of 2014 –These are the films worth owning in DVD or Blu-Ray

UNDER THE SKIN

CAPTAIN AMERICA : THE WINTER SOLDIER

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

EDGE OF TOMORROW

3 DAYS TO KILL

A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT

METRO MANILA

BLUE RUIN

ENJOYABLE THEATRICAL EXPERIENCES of 2014

X-MEN DAYS OF FUTURES PAST

CAPTAIN AMERICA : THE WINTER SOLDIER

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

EDGE OF TOMORROW

AND WRAPPING THIS INSTALLMENT UP, MOVIES STILL ON MY LIST TO SEE

MOOD INDIGO – started watching this, what craziness I saw… so far I like

GONE GIRL – Ben Affleck is a filmmaker I have yet to try. Nor am I in a particular rush to, but I’ll eventually get to this film as well as his THE TOWN.

INHERENT VICE

GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

NIGHTCRAWLER

BIRDMAN

THE LEGO MOVIE

THE IMITATION GAME

ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE

LOVE IS STRANGE OUT

A WALK AMONG TOMBSTONES

NOAH

TOP FIVE

THE HOMESMAN

INTERSTELLAR

DEVIL’S DUE

AMERICAN HUSTLE

CAPITAL

OMAR

MISS VIOLENCE

STILL LIFE

GRIGRIS

NORTE THE END OF HISTORY

CHILD’S POSE

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE 3D

WHIPLASH

NIGHT MOVES

BOYHOOD

FOXCATCHER

IDA

LUCY

THE MONUMENTS MEN

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR

TWO DAYS ONE NIGHT

STRANGER ON THE LAKE

JORDOROWSKY’S DUNE

JOY OF MAN’S DESIRING (Que ta joie demure)

THE IMMIGRANT

DEAR WHITE PEOPLE

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

SELMA

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE

NO GOOD DEED

MANUSCRIPTS DON’T BURN

WINTER SLEEP

STRANGE LITTLE CAT

COLD IN JULY

THE GUEST

IT FOLLOWS

JOHN WICK

THE IMMIGRANT

DON’T GO BREAKING MY HEART

LUCY

NON-STOP

NEED FOR SPEED

COHERENCE

BIRD PEOPLE

PROXY

JOE

HERCULES

THE SIGNAL

THE BETTER ANGELS

OPEN WINDOWS

EXPENDABLES 3

CALVARY

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2

Thanks To the following sites for bringing some of the above films to my attention. Hope you have found this list helpful, and feel free to shoot me an email or comment with any you think I may have missed. Enjoy! :

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